Category: Grief

Divorce, Grief, Transitions, Travel, TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS, Widowhood

FROM VICTIM TO VICTOR Learning, Overcoming rejection or Abandonment

Deryn
2018-06-27 01.31.20-1
At Santa Barbara

Last week we looked at the scenarios that led us to feeling rejected or abandoned. How do we take positive steps to take back our power and not feel the victim of someone else’s decisions? We may need to look back further than the current situation to find our healing.  Sometimes these feelings of abandonment start as a child. Were you ever in a supermarket or fair and you could not find your parents?  Did you parents neglect to spend a lot of time with you, leaving you to your own devises or a long line of child minders? 

Parents that were not available to you to nurture the bond that should be between parent and child. Perhaps your parents were divorced, and you could not bond with one or the other parent at a time when your greatest need was to feel safe and protected.  This may have led you into unhealthy attachments to caregivers or a romantic partner when you did find someone who took care of you. Instead of a relationship based on mutual care and love, you fell into a co-dependency role in an unhealthy relationship that led to divorce.

As a widow you may feel more intense grief at the death of your partner, feeling abandoned.  In the school grounds you felt abandoned and rejected when your best friend went off with someone else and you were shunned from the group. These are the roots that make us feel these emotions more intensely and if they have been a habitual pattern in your life may continue to plague you until they are recognized and dealt with.

So how do we get past this feeling of abandonment and rejection? First, you need to stop believing that you were not good enough or it was all your fault. (This could be from the childhood root).  Start to nurture yourself, where you felt you lacked, start making time to fill those places with self-love and care.  Take yourself out to the movies or a cup of coffee and cake, something that will feed your soul.  Listen to beautiful music, it washes your heart with tears.  Read good books, and if you are not a reader, listen to podcasts, but especially listen to the Word of God.  If you read the Psalms, you will find so many that meet your heart’s cry for answers. It is beautiful, when you come across a Psalm that speaks directly to your need, a message from God. Psalm 94:14 “The Lord will not reject his people; he will not abandon his special possession.” When we think we are unlovable and nobody will ever care for us again, remember that God who created you loves you and is there to help you through this dark place.

Don’t beat yourself up over the what ifs’ focus on replacing old memories with new memories and dreams of another future. Celebrate the good times and create an action plan for the future. I have found it to be much easier if you have a clean break. If you are divorced minimize contact to basics or via a third person.  Put emotional distance (physical environment too if possible) between you.  Heal your heart before dating again otherwise your same lack of confidence and unhealthy attachment pattern may rise up to sabotage you.

https://ntrelationships.com/single-again-dating-after-widowhood/

https://ntrelationships.com/single-again-dating-after-divorce/

Clear out the cupboards, get rid of items that bring back memories that hurt. I gave my wedding pictures to the children.  Or if widowed just making a special album or decorating s corner in your home to remember your departed where you can go when you want to remember. Make a space for your new future to emerge.

It is not helpful to follow your ex on social media or get the kids to spy on him. Keep taking back your own life by making new memories to replace the old hurtful ones. Visit new places, do things that you did not do with him. On a rough day, do hard physical exercise, walk run, play a sport. Scrub floors, whatever it takes to get it out of your system.

Spend time with friends or family, people who have your back and will listen to you. Join in community activities like hiking clubs, art or book clubs, try to find ones that are not couples orientated. Reinvent yourself – reassess your values and start doing the things that make you happy. Make some new life goals, set yourself challenges, learn new skills. Set goals that encompasses spiritual, mental, physical and emotional aspects so you grow in all areas.

There is a lot of learning to be done in this space, finding yourself again, and what you want for the future.  It is often helpful to make a vision board of what you would like your life to be like. This is all part of recovering your sense of self-worth – learn new skills so you can feel you have achieved something, that really gives you a boost. Continue to grow mentally, spiritually, and physically and you will see how they all work together to help you grow emotionally. Replace negative self-talk with positive affirmations and Bible verses that say you are beloved by God.  I took Art Classes and painted my heart out, just the positive feedback from another human being may be all you need to build your self confidence again.  Walk away from anyone who want to criticize and deride you and set boundaries on your own and other people’s behavior towards you.

Most of all learn to enjoy your own company while you are working through this loss, rather like a butterfly when it is in the chrysalis, quietly transforming on the inside, until you are ready to emerge in glorious technicolor.

Divorce, Grief, Transitions, Widowhood

ABANDONMENT, REJECTION OR MOVING ON- We Still Need Relationships

Deryn

When we move through a transition in our lives, it is often because people in our lives have either rejected us or have died or have moved on themselves, sometimes it is because we have moved on ourselves or moved to a new destination so we leave people behind or outgrow them.  Some relationships are meant to be transitory, for a season and others to be of a more permanent nature, such as marriage, or kinship.

We were created to be in relationships, when God created man, He said it is not good for man to be alone, I will make a helper for him. When we lose a primary relationship through divorce or death, it can bring on intense feelings of loneliness, abandonment or rejection. This week I will discuss rejection and loneliness and the following week what we can do about it.

When you go through a divorce the feelings of rejection are intense especially if there is a third party involved.  You may beat yourself up, why was I not good enough? What does he see in her? The questions will mull around endlessly with no answers. Rejection affects the way we think and feel about ourselves and can spiral out of control into a depression. We may try to cling on to every bit of hope to try and get our ex-spouse back, layering even more rejection on at each rebuff, adding fuel to the fire already out of control and making us feel we want to take revenge. These are all negative and will not bring us peace of mind or joy, neither will they help us heal and learn new lessons becoming the person we were created to be.  Quite often, a divorce is part of a refining process, where you will be put through the fire and how you handle it will prove your character, whether it will consume and destroy you or bring out the beautiful qualities that are within you.

Widowhood can also bring on feelings of rejection or abandonment if the cause of death was self-inflicted, the same questions of, ‘was I not enough for him to hold onto life’ may haunt you. I had a fiancée who committed suicide and it was hard not to think that I was not enough for him to hold onto life and sort out his problems. I later came to realize that some depressions are a physical disease and just like cancer cannot be cured, resulting in the same end -death.

Moving destinations can also cause you to lose people in your life. People who you were once really close to, when you moved away no longer keep in touch, or maybe it was you who broke the communication by not responding to them. Either way some form of abandonment will be felt, especially when you thought they were a lifelong friend. It is good to view these as transitory friends and mourn their loss, although sometime later in your life you may pick up those strands of friendship again. After the Rhodesian diaspora many of my friends scattered over the globe as did I, as we moved around from address to address, we lost touch as there was no internet, only snail mail!  Today with social media, I have picked up ties with many of them again, being able to share our common history and struggles in our new environments, their friendship is richer and even more valuable now.

Loneliness is the result of this alienation, rejection or moving on.  This can be really hard to deal with especially if you have always had people around you that knew you and you could talk to. When loneliness takes over you are vulnerable to depression, self-harm or addictions and may start to live like a hermit without the confidence to move out and move on and find new people to relate to.

The first step of moving forward out of this vortex of depression and self-sabotage is accepting that this has happened, it is something that nothing you can do will change it. This is the start of taking your power back and getting out of victim mode. The second step is believing in yourself again, a beautiful person created in the image of God, someone who was born for a purpose and finding that person and purpose in life again, connecting with  God and asking for His help to bring you into alignment with His plans for your life. Thirdly is doing the hard work and changing your belief systems to empower you to make the changes you need to move into the next chapter in your life.  Next week’s blog will address some of those changes, so be sure to check in again next week………..

 

 

Divorce, Grief, Seasons of Life, Transitions, TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS, Widowhood

GRAFTED INTO THE LIVING TREE

Deryn

In many ways it is much easier to understand spiritual concepts through metaphors and as an artist, I understand a lot more about God’s love through nature when I can see practical evidence than through mere words which do not capture my imagination, but often sound judgmental.

So, what can ‘being grafted in’ mean for those of us who have had to transition through difficult life circumstances with limited choices, escaped from countries where violence rules or been through a divorce?

As a young child I used to follow my father or grandfather around the garden.  One of the things they did was graft a bud from a new good bearing fruit tree onto the stock of an old fruit tree or one that was a strong grower but did not bear good fruit.  Some of the more delicate trees would not be able to withstand the climatic conditions, but the root stock could and so this symbiosis of the two would bring about the desired fruit.

The prophet Isaiah uses a tree metaphor pointing to the future birth of Christ from the lineage of David ‘a green shoot will sprout from Jesse’s stump, and from his roots a budding branch,’ He also said that the ‘Spirit of God would hover over him giving wisdom, understanding, direction and strength and the knowledge and the fear of God would be his joy and delight.’ The second half of the Isaiah passage has brought me much comfort where the budding branch (Christ) won’t judge by appearances, won’t decide on the basis of hearsay; isn’t that just what we need? God knows the heart of these matters and will judge the needy by what is right and render justice to the poor.  When people only see what they want to see or hear what they want to hear, when the widow or divorcee has been treated unjustly, God will see and bring justice in his time.

This symbiosis of the root stock and the branch is mentioned again in Romans where Paul writes that the Gentiles (wild olive tree) have been grafted into Abraham’s tree, which was God’s special olive tree so that both could share the rich nourishment from God, for if the roots of the tree are holy, the branches will be too.

God has a lot to say about the treatment of widows, orphans and foreigners that they should be treated fairly. He made a lot of provisions for them in the laws that governed harvesting and reaping. In this modern age it is hard to see the equivalent when women are treated ‘equally’, orphans are put into foster homes and foreigners are welcome, yet often find it more difficult to get the same opportunities as others.  As I fitted into this category of widow and foreigner, I once asked my pastor how he saw me. He was surprised and said, ‘I see you as a competent woman!” This may have been so, but it did not address the loneliness I felt of being widowed, neither the feeling of alienation from the culture, being an ‘outsider’. This was the time I needed to be ‘grafted into’ the new community. How does that happen, I think it takes the symbiosis of accepting one another, the stable stock allowing the new bud to be grafted in, it also requires that the bud heal into the tissues of the stock and start drawing sap from the root which is grounded.  As the two grow together, the sap (the Spirit) will nourish and bring wisdom, understanding, direction and strength, trusting that God who makes things grow will certainly bring unity allowing relationships to flourish and grow.

The Tree of Life is mentioned in Revelation, where its leaves will be used for the healing of the Nations, in this time of mass migration and brokenness of the family structure, would it not be wonderful if we could learn from the tree and adapt and grow together, each branch grafted into its community and each nation being grafted into the Tree of Life where we would all be at peace with one another and have all our needs met. This is what God intended from the beginning so He could enjoy living among the people He created, He is the root and we are the branches and the sap is the Spirit of unity that binds us all together. Our church communities could be a starting point on a micro level! The weaker cannot thrive without the stronger, the old cannot bear as much good fruit without the strength and vitality of the new graft as it draws its strength for the roots the symbiosis is the living tree bearing good fruit.

Divorce, Grief, Retirement, Seasons of Life, Transitions, TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS, Widowhood

BLESSINGS OR CURSINGS

Deryn

Today, I am going to walk you through a forest of different stories, they are linked by a theme of blessing or cursing. What does this mean for someone who has been widowed, gone through a divorce or lost their home?  What does this mean for those who are transitioning to new places? These stories symbolize to me God’s providential care and provision represented by the place trees held in the stories.

I was fascinated to learn the role trees played in early Biblical history. In the beginning God created trees and declared them good: they were to be used for man’s food and enjoyment. After Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit from the tree in the Garden of Eden, the first thing Adam and Eve did was to sew leaves together to cover themselves and hide in the trees. Instead of food trees were used for cover and protection!

Growing up in Africa with shady trees; we enjoyed many a meal or afternoon tea under a tree with our guests, a place of hospitality and protection from the sun. Abraham bought a plot of land at Mamre that had a cave and trees on it, he entertained God’s messengers under the trees, this is also where he buried his wife Sarah and others who died. Have you noticed that old graveyards have trees planted around them, especially the ones with tall cypress trees standing like sentinels to watch over the dead? Trees provide peace and protection to the dead and living alike.

When Pharaoh would not let the Israelites go, God sent a hailstorm that shattered the trees, and so began a pattern in the Old Testament of destroying trees as judgement. When they were about to besiege a city, the Israelites were instructed not to destroy the fruit trees, so they could eat the fruit but they could cut down non fruit bearing trees to make ladders, portable towers, and battering rams to get into the city. After the enemy was captured quite often the bodies were hung on trees. Jesus was hung on a tree when he was crucified; the symbol of redemption too, provision for our salvation protecting us from God’s wrath. Even in modern times this practice of hanging was practiced as a form of capital punishment.

There is a correlation between blessings and cursing with trees. When people turned away from God, their crops would be stunted, locusts would eat their plants, there would be droughts and fire and olive and fig trees be destroyed or not bear fruit. In other words, their provision and protection were withdrawn. On the other hand, when God blessed the people, their fruit trees and fields yielded bumper crops, and everyone lived in safety. The prophet Habakkuk said even if the fig tree did not blossom and there are no grapes on the vines and the crops and livestock failed, he would continue to rejoice in God his Savior. You may ask whether you are suffering under a curse when things seem bleak after your loss? Turning to God, will help transform your mindset to blessings even if you can’t see them right now, if you rejoice in the presence of God, you will still be under His covenant of provision and protection.

Trees were also used in decoration and celebration. God gave the blueprint for the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant, to be made with richly carved and gilded wood. Solomon’s Temple was made with wood brought from the forests of Lebanon, firs, pines, and box trees carved and gilded to beautify the sanctuary. Medieval churches were also richly decorated, something modern man could be missing out on! The Festival of Booths, (boughs were cut from trees and booths were made from them) was to remind the Israelites they had lived in tents in the wilderness and God had provided both food and shelter for them and when they arrived in the Promised land, he gave them vineyards and olive trees they had not planted. This festival was at the end of the natural harvest cycle and was a joyful celebration. Our modern Harvest Festival has a similar tone, to celebrate the provision of God in the harvest.- Even families were likened to olive trees, the psalmist wrote “your wife shall be contented in your home, and the children sit around the dinner table as vigorous and healthy as young olive trees!” Again, a symbol of fruitfulness and provision and children would be a protection in their old age.

We may be travelling through a desolate place right now, through the wilderness, and yet God provides food and shelter in those places. When I think back to the times I have been through the wilderness after my divorce and widowhood, there has always been a roof over my head and food has been provided in one way or another. When I first started my new job in Johannesburg, the company put me up at a hotel for a couple of weeks. As I had made an international move, they extended my stay until the end of the month and my first paycheck.  I then stayed with a family member for a month until I could get my own apartment. The company also had a policy of ‘Meal Tickets’ which you could exchange for a meal at the local fast food stores.  I had had to move forward in faith not knowing how I would get by until my first paycheck and yet there was not a day I was not provided for. I have had to trust the Lord to protect me to take care of my children going to school, when I was seriously ill with a deep vein thrombosis and when they had to move overseas to make their own way in the world.

Sometimes we may have escaped from a situation where we felt like there was no fruit, no joy and no blessings, that we were being punished for what has gone wrong in our lives and bad choices we had made, our person-hood was under siege or we were the victim of other people’s choices. When next you look at trees, stop to think about what they symbolize – Enjoy their beauty and know that God will provide and protect you especially when you are going through the wilderness. “Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” Isaiah 46:4

Chopped tree
Divorce, Grief, Retirement, Seasons of Life, Transitions

TREES AS METAPHORS FOR LIFE, GROWTH AND DEATH.

Deryn

My grandfather had a saying, ‘I am nearer God’s heart in a Garden than anywhere else on earth’.  In many ways I think this is true, God walked and conversed with the first man and woman in the Garden of Eden.  There is a peacefulness among trees shading you from the sun as you listen to wind rustling in their leaves. There are so many sayings and metaphors written about trees – poets, artists, writers and philosophers have sat and thought great thoughts under trees.

Author L M Montgomery has captured the essence of trees through the voice of Anne of Green Gables, ’I could not live where there are no trees, something vital in me would starve’; Anne named trees that delighted her senses. This probably rubbed off on me as I sat in my beloved tree house reading Anne of Green Gables and being entranced with the lovely purple tubular flowers of the jacaranda tree.

Oak trees have associations with death. At the Memorial Service for my late father one of our friends said, “A Mighty Oak has Fallen”. This was appropriate for my father, who had been well respected leader in the institutions in which he worked in Africa. Another tree that spoke of death was the tree upon which the Savior of the world died, the old rugged cross. People were buried under oak trees and David’s son Absalom caught his hair in the branches of an oak tree and died.

Trees have many symbolic and metaphorical meanings. A sapling needs protection from the wind and deer, it needs to be watered and nourished until its roots are deep enough to find its own nutrients and water. As children we require the protection and nourishment that our parents give us to grow strong enough to stand on our own two feet. Sometimes they overprotect us, and we don’t develop our own strength and become dependent on others to support us when the parental role has gone.  Sometimes they don’t protect us enough and we are stunted or get damaged by droughts or predators. This can cause difficulties in our adult life and in relationships and sometimes it takes a failed marriage to understand what needs to change and maybe a bit of pruning or reshaping is required to grow strong and healthy again.

Growing a heathy tree takes time and good practices. You will notice the growth rings on a tree that has been chopped down, these rings are year on year growth, emotional intelligence, mental capacity, physical strength and spiritual growth.  When the rings are even and close together the trunk of the tree is strong, when there are gaps, unevenness or damage, these are places when rot can set in. Protect them by renewing your mind, getting rid of old belief systems, choose actions that protect and not harm you, making you strong and healthy.

Once the roots of the tree are well established, they go deep down into the soil to find nutrients and water necessary to sustain the life of the tree. The sap runs up and down the tree, taking in carbon dioxide and releasing it as oxygen, keeping our environment healthy too.  The roots in a forest entwine with other tree roots making a stable tree community in the forest. We need to be kept accountable by being rooted in a community where we will flourish; a lone tree stands danger of being struck by lightning, eaten by deer or being chopped for firewood. If we don’t have a supporting community, we are an easy target for those who would harm us.

The trunk of an established tree stands firm supporting the branches and carries nutrients from the roots. It has some flexibility when the wind blows, its strength preventing the tree from being blown over; year on year it becomes stronger and stronger.  Our growth into maturity should be supporting all our activities (the branches) our relationships and our emotional intelligence. Each year a layer of wisdom added from our life experiences, we should be able to discern our places of weakness and attend to them so we become strong and not be swayed by the winds of other people’s opinions, but be confident in our decision making abilities with the help of our inner guide, the Holy Spirit.

Branches grow upwards and outwards, they provide shelter to birds and small creatures, they provide shelter from the storm and shade from the sun. The branches bear fruit providing food or beauty for the eye of the beholder. As we mature, our branches are our children, families, and relationships with others, providing for them, shelter, food and pleasure. We reach out to our neighborhood and beyond with the abundance of our excess. Some of the fruit remains on the branches, for the birds, animals and the poor and hungry.  This is mentioned as ‘gleaning’ in the Bible, people were instructed not to strip their fruit trees but to leave some fruit for the widows, aliens and orphans. Giving to those in need from your excess, to charities helping the poor and needy.

What about the leaves?  The colors of fall are a delight to the eye when the leaves are their brightest, before they drop from the tree. Leaves are seasonal, they sing and dance in the breeze, and provide a mulch for the tree where the leaves break down and once again enter the soil as nutrients the tree will take up in its next season. I love the metaphor of the seasons, at times we can be so busy doing, we don’t have time to just be. After a busy season of growing fruit and harvesting it is time to rest. We think we have to be constantly busy doing and working, but that is not the pattern God set for our lives, there are seasons of growth and seasons to rest and be still, there are seasons to bear fruit and seasons where there is little or no fruit.

When we go through transitions, we are like trees that need to rest, to conserve and renew our energy, it is the end of that season in our life. We may even be transplanted if we move to a new location, this will take a long time before our roots settle down into the new soil and find their food and nutrients.  Until we become stable again, we will be vulnerable. These are the times we need to be nurturing and taking the most care of ourselves, so our roots survive enabling us to thrive and bear fruit in another season. Take the time to walk and talk with God in your new garden, so He can infuse you with life and vitality as the sap rises again.